Latest news with #YarraCouncil
Sky News AU
2 days ago
- Politics
- Sky News AU
Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly plots council revolt over Fire Services Levy, accuses Vic Premier of getting councils to ‘do her dirty work'
A local mayor from Melbourne's inner city is plotting a council revolt against the Allan government's controversial Emergency Services Levy. The new levy has sparked outrage in regional communities, with critics claiming it will see some property owners pay 150 per cent more than under the previous fire services levy. Property owners across the states will have to pay the levy through local council rates, and many regional councils are reluctant to collect the tax, worrying residents will simply refuse to pay. They have been joined by Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly, who is backing a motion for his inner city council to stand up to the state government. The motion, to be debated next week, seeks legal advice about whether the council can refuse to collect the tax or mount a legal challenge against it. It also calls for Yarra Council – which covers the inner city suburbs such as Richmond, Collingwood, and Fitzroy - to 'build a mass alliance' against the levy. 'We're trying to get a bit of a bandwagon here, so that the council to actually say to the government, no, we're not going to collect it,' Mr Jolly told 3AW on Tuesday, adding that he had recently spoken to the mayor of Hobsons Bay. "Because… somebody needs to stand up to this Premier, and if it has to be me, well, we'll do it.' The City of Yarra Mayor hit out at Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan over the levy, accusing the Labor leader of attempting to get local councils to 'do her dirty work for her'. 'I think this fire service levy is an absolute disgrace, but have some balls. If you're going to bring it in, collect it yourself,' he said. Mr Jolly was previously elected as a Socialist Party councillor and ran as the Victorian Socialists' lead candidate in the 2018 state election. However in 2024 the long-time Yarra councillor ran with a group of independents called 'Yarra for all' and has repeatedly taken aim at the woke policies of the previously Greens-dominated council. Speaking to 3AW's Russell Howcroft and Ross Stevenson, Mayor Jolly said the new Emergency Services Levy would undo the work the current Yarra Council had done to reduce the cost of living for ratepayers. 'We've done all this great work in the last six months cleaning up from the greens, fixing up the council area, fixing up the budget, and having a rate bill that people can afford to pay, and they're messing up this work because we've now got to add to our rate bill the fire services levy fund,' he said. 'It's nothing to do with us. We're collecting it for them, and if we don't collect it, they're telling us that we have to pay them anyway. 'Your average person on the street is going to pick that up and go, 'Oh, that Stephen Jolly is full of nonsense. He's on 3AW banging on about how they turned the ship around, and here we have a rate spill bigger than we've ever received. 'And they're not going to read the small print that it's not us that's collecting it, it's for Jacinta.' Mr Jolly added that combined with the government's other reforms, the Emergency Services Levy raised questions about what the Victorian Labor Party thought councils were for. 'They're making us collect their unpopular taxes. They're telling developers they don't have to pay developer contribution if the building build to rent,' he said. 'So what's the bloody point of councils at all? I mean, be done with it. Just cancel it if that's what you think.' The Allan government has defended its new Emergency Services Levy by pointing out that all funds raised will be used to pay for the state's emergency services. And on Monday, a government spokesperson told the Herald Sun that local councils had for years been collecting the previous fire services levy, which was introduced by the former Liberal government.
Sky News AU
14-05-2025
- General
- Sky News AU
'Intellectual cowardice': Melbourne council accused of caving to vandals with vote to permanently remove captain Cook memorial
Melbourne's Yarra Council has been accused of caving to vandals after it voted to permanently remove a memorial of captain James Cook, which had been damaged in January last year. The monument previously stood at the entrance of Edinburgh Gardens, in Fitzroy North, but it has been in storage since January 28, 2024, when vandals toppled the granite plinth, damaged the bronze bust of Cook, and scrawled 'cook the colony' over it. On Tuesday councillors unanimously voted to have the monument removed from Yarra Council's collection, rejecting a proposal to restore and reinstate it. The decision was condemned by Dr Bella d'Abrera from the Institute of Public Affairs, who accused the council of 'intellectual cowardice'. 'It is a sad indictment on the state of Melbourne that even a granite monument, quietly standing in a park, is not safe from ideological vandalism,' Dr d'Abrera told The Foundations of Western Civilisation program director said the decision was evidence of a 'deep cultural problem'. The decision to remove the statue came following a report to council, which recommended the monument be removed from the council's collection on the grounds of the cost to repair and reinstate it, its lack of significance to Edinburgh Gardens, and the fact it was likely to be the target of vandalism in the future. The report said the monument had suffered 'severe damage' from the vandalism, and would cost $15,000 to repair and reinstate the monument – although $5,000 of this would be covered by insurance. 'The Memorial's return to the site is likely to create a risk of ongoing vandalism of the object,' the report states 'Mitigation measures such as additional lighting or surveillance could be explored, though these will have cost implications beyond the current budget and will only operate as a deterrent.' In supporting the plan to get rid of the monument, Yarra Council Mayor Stephen Jolly said he could not justify the ongoing cost that would come from future vandalism. 'I'm not in favour of demolishing statues of people in the past, even problematic ones,' Mayor Jolly said. 'But [I] don't think if we put it back up, it would be just damaged one more time. It would be ongoing, ongoing and ongoing. And how can we justify that?' But Dr d'Abrera said this was only encouraging people to vandalise other statues. 'Apparently, the best way to engage with history in 2025 is to vandalise monuments. We used to debate ideas, now we just destroy anything that might offend,' she said. She said the irony of the situation was that Captain Cook hadn't even been an advocate of colonisation. 'Captain Cook is one of the greatest explorers who ever lived and today there is still much to learn from his great legacy,' she said. Yarra Council is currently in talks with the Captain Cook Society for the group to take possession and find a new home for the monument. 'Rather than it sitting in some council shed somewhere ... it should be preserved, and an appropriate place found for it,' the Captain Cook Society's Bill Lang told The Age. Mr Lang acknowledged the cost of repairing and reinstating the memorial may not be feasible, given the council's other priorities. But he urged police to enforce the law and ensure other Captain Cook monuments didn't receive the same treatment. 'It's incredibly disappointing that there are people that can't put themselves in the shoes of people of their time,' he said. 'We would all do much better to understand our history and to learn from it.'
